What I hate is that people assume that you should wake up to answer their stupid questions. Save the stupid random stuff for day time. Do you know how many times our emergency hospital gets calls like, "Do boy dogs have nipples?" at three AM? So many that it is a running joke. One of my favorites: "I got home from the club at 3 AM and my dog was sleeping." Ok, join him.

Why do you give your cell phone number out to your patients?! Granted I'm a pharmacist, but I don't want my patients to even have a clue where I live, what my phone number is, etc... I can only imagine the voicemails I'd get... "Hi, uh can you fill my vico-dans and xanaxes and have it ready for me when you open?" No way in hell.

On a slightly different tangent, as a new mom with a snuffling 6 week old with such tiny notrils that I envisioned the morsel suffocating in its sleep, I waited and watched (and debated) for signs of decreased respirations all evening long about calling the family doc, then at about 11:00 PM when could stand it no more made a call and talked with her directly. She did a lot to allay the fears, and then stated, "Don't wait so long to call, next time. I need my sleep, too." Needless to say, I made it a point to think about the issue at hand to avoid delaying a call to later in the night. (Now, as hospital pharmacist, there is certain amount of passive-aggressivity in 'having' to call an MD at night that's been the very devil to work with during the day--but, tried to avoid that as well, in case the waking in the middle of night might affect the MD's safe practice).

What I find astounding as that it seems these are older people calling you at all times of the night; one would think they'd a lick of sense by then!

I think that an older man having to get up to pee at 2:30 in the morning is Worrisome. Why not express concern, then invite him in to the office for a FULL physical? That will likely be the last time he calls you that late (early)....

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

Singing Foo!

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Note: I do not answer medical questions. If you are having a medical issue, see your own doctor. For all you know I'm really a Mongolian yak herder and have no medical training at all except in issues regarding the care and feeding of Mongolian yaks.